


I'll Never Tear You Apart

by actonbell



Category: The Magicians (TV), The Magicians - Lev Grossman
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Femslash if you squint, First Kiss, Hair Braiding, Kissing, Magic, Marianism - Freeform, Missing Scene, Music, Nightmares, Past Murder, Past Rape/Non-con, Playlist, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Slash, Rape Recovery, unabashed Mariolatry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-13
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-09-23 23:15:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9686486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/actonbell/pseuds/actonbell
Summary: Julia slammed the door right as his latest number showboated to its conclusion -- like all magicians, Martin lived for theatrics -- and he looked at Marina with his usual bright keen interest, as if the whole world were under a microscope for him to dissect. "Back even before I expected!" he said brightly. "You must be  absolutely helpless."This is a missing scene from Syfy'sThe Magicians,between the end of "Hotel Spa Potions" (2x02) and the beginning of "Divine Elimination" (2x03). Sadly I don't think it will make much sense if you haven't seen the show.There's a brief flashback during a nightmare to a scene of rape and mass murder.





	1. Chapter 1

_Take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder and sieve it through the finest sieve and then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy. And yet....you try to act as if there is some ideal order in the world. As if there is some rightness in the universe by which it may be judged._

\- Terry Pratchett, _Hogfather_

 

Julia's studio apartment -- or rather, the studio apartment her mother still _let her use_ even though recently she had been _such a disappointment_ \-- seemed to shrink to half its size the second time Marina was inside it. It was the first time she'd been there voluntarily, and as she walked in Julia saw the chips and worn spots in the old paint job on the walls behind her so clearly she wondered if Marina was casting something to throw her off -- a reverse glamour. But she seemed entirely focused on Martin (that was how Julia had to think of him now, if he was in her apartment and "helping" her, not The Beast but _Martin,_ Martin Chatwin, who had been like them....) and that was probably how Martin wanted it, with his too-smooth singing that was like a thousand-strings arrangement of elevator music you couldn't turn off.

Julia slammed the door right as his latest number showboated to its conclusion -- like all magicians, Martin lived for theatrics -- and he looked at Marina with his usual bright keen interest, as if the whole world were under a microscope for him to dissect. "Back even before I expected!" he said brightly. "You must be absolutely helpless."

Marina ignored him and looked Julia in the eye, less supplicatory now she was over the threshold. "I went to Brakebills for sanctuary," she said, and Julia winced, knowing how that must have been the last thing Marina wanted to do, ever. "Turned me down. Guess you know how that feels." Julia rolled her eyes and went past the breakfast bar to the kitchen cupboard that had the emergency brandy she kept for guests, and a shotglass -- she picked up one with "Obliviate" printed on it, that James had gotten her as a joke last Christmas. When she saw which glass she'd picked up she nearly dropped it, which distracted her from Marina and Martin in the living room.

"Forget Brakebills -- it's a charm school. Or do I mean charms school?" he was saying, and Julia _felt_ something from Marina, not anything so concrete as anger or distress but a weird shift in the air, like a magical barometric drop. When she turned around warily Martin was smiling -- beaming, really -- at Marina. "Ah, Nimue!" he crooned. "Shall I be your Merlin?"

He began humming low and soft, a sad sweet tune, and then began singing in a language Julia didn't know but guessed was Russian.

 _"Perekroite vse inache_  
_Sulit mne novyie udachi,_  
_Iskusstvo kroyki i shitya" --_

He broke off as the tension in the atmosphere resolved into a low, harsh hum, like a dynamo powering itself up. Marina had put her hands out, palms down, then turned them over -- nothing more than that, but they could all feel the magic gathering between her fingers, charged particles almost visible, changing. _"I_ didn't make a deal with you," she said slowly, vocal fry making her words into a growl. "There's no bond to break. So if you try messing with _my_ head" -- she twitched her fingers slightly and black sparks arced between them -- "I'll turn you inside out and make you like it."

Martin laughed, delighted on the surface, but Julia could read him well enough now to see a flicker of fear, no more than a flash. "My God, Julia, this one's _spunky!"_ he declared. "Can't you see, this is what you could become? If you would just shake off that ridiculous -- "

The shot glass was slippery in Julia's clutch. "Go. Far away. _Now,"_ Marina spat, a dark glow beginning to suffuse her hands. "As you wish, milady," Martin said, beaming again, and doffed a fedora that had popped onto his head. He vanished but the fedora stayed, still jauntily tilted in the air a moment before falling to the floor. The strike from Marina's hands turned it into a wisp of white smoke that smelled bittersweet -- pungent but somehow sickly floral too.

"Hey, watch the floor," Julia said, and then tried breathing through her mouth, handing the drink to Marina so she could crack open a window. "Plagh. What _is_ that?"

"Opium," Marina said tensely. She swirled her brandy too fast in the shot glass so it nearly slopped out, still glaring at the floor as if she could see some remnant of Martin, a tiny spoor. She threw back the drink and shoved the glass at Julia in a _more-now-again_ gesture. "Funny, I didn't take you for a homeowner."

Julia knew how her apartment looked, pure gentrification -- the open-plan living room and kitchen, the dark wood ceiling and support beams, the high, wide north-facing windows, the sliding french doors with white woodwork that shut off the bedroom, silk curtains pulled back behind them. Real hardwood floors, not laminate. "It's not -- mine," she said haltingly, "my mom -- she's a politician -- pays for it, most of it. It's some kind of....tax loophole, writeoff, I don't know." She gestured vaguely.

"Love it," Marina declared, sipping the brandy this time. The stick-on faux Wizarding World script had disappeared from the shot glass, replaced by the Brakebills crest, just the gold bee forming part of the key. "Very chic. A little instagrammy, do you really need all these empty vases? And the _plants,_ don't you have a problem with dirt? Looks like it'd be hell to get blood off the paint."

Julia stared at her, willing herself not to show any emotion. "You did a good job," she said evenly, and was rewarded with one of Marina's real, slow smiles, one she remembered from when she hadn't been Marina's student so much as they'd both been finding out together what Julia could do, breaking through boundaries together.

"It's what I do," she said, "clean up messes. But you just went and got yourself into another one, didn't you, Yuliya? _What_ the _fuck_ are you doing with him?" She sank back onto the sofa, crossing her legs and propping one black stacked heel on the round stone coffee table. "And this time, bring the damn bottle."

Julia did as she was told, then flipped on the always-filled electric kettle to make a cup of tea for herself. Marina waited her out as she stalled, pretending to choose between one lavender tea and another, rinsing out the cup strainer, hesitating over cream or soy milk. She felt a light teasing twitch at the hem of her hoodie, not quite a compulsion but a warning to stop wasting time. She brought a sleeve of organic honey graham crackers and a jar of cashew butter to the table, which Marina sniffed at like a cat debating whether or not to eat canned food. _"Sit,"_ she commanded, "just sit. Now. Tell me. _Everything."_

Julia gulped but obeyed, her tea going cold in her cupped hands as she went on and on, starting at the beginning with Richard _(oh, Richard)_ and the very first prayer, to She of the Grain (Marina rolled her eyes), her penance with Kiera (Marina's eyes narrowed), and how the prayer had really been a test to see if she could tap into the divine, contact the gods and ask them for help. (Marina looked like she had smelled something foul. "He was using you -- he _was_ a user, you know." "I know.") Describing Free Trader Beowulf, her dear murdered friends with their desperate desires which had become deadly blind spots, they all sounded even more like needy children than before, including her. But Marina just listened, narrowing her laser-beam blue eyes occasionally, looking off into the distance as she figured something out, snapping the puzzle pieces together. Julia had thought she could talk about the massacre -- she'd told the essential details, however incoherently, to Marina once already, and then Quentin -- but she felt a sharp pain across her palm and looked down to find the cup had cracked in her grip. She let go and the pieces fell to the floor, shattering on impact.

Marina took her hand and pressed an old-fashioned stitched white handkerchief over the cut; when she let go, it was bloody but as Julia watched, the red disappeared, leaving the cloth stainless and her skin unbroken. The shards were gone, the floor spotless. Marina touched her hand again, testing the healing spell, then ran her fingers up Julia's arm to what Julia thought of as her Brakebills scar -- the first time magic had drawn her blood, when she'd vowed to remember, to hang on to what she knew was really true and never let them take it away from her. The scar shrank under Marina's fingers, momentarily fading and growing back. Julia moved her arm away, pulling her long sleeve down to hide it, even though she knew it was childish. Marina smiled at her again, another real smile; this time a small, very human one.

"It's okay," she said. "You don't have to tell me again. I remember." She sat up straight and her gaze turned inward, those no-colour-in-nature eyes focused intently on the floor, the spot where Martin had vanished without a trace. Julia was reminded, for far from the first time, of a porcelain doll's head she'd found at the edge of a playground one time, before Quentin had gotten self-conscious about being too big to go on the swings. The doll's hard but satiny skin had shone through the mud and grime, and its painted, lidless blue eyes had seemed to stare right through her, aiming straight up at the equally bright blue sky. She'd smuggled it home at the bottom of her winter coat pocket and kept it hidden in a bottom drawer for years, until her mother had finally found it and immediately thrown it out. 

Marina came back from wherever she'd been -- Julia didn't know whether she'd been using a memory spell or if her natural recall was that good; knowing Marina, it could be either -- and looked at Julia sadly, the expression perhaps the closest she could get to pity. "Dressed all in white, chanting and singing, candles, _flowers_....you really couldn't see that you were sacrifices? All of you?" Julia shook her head.

"Lambs to the slaughter," Marina mused, in wonder. "That kind of faith....it's perfect. Pure. Blinding."

"Richard had it," Julia couldn't help saying. "Maybe the rest of them did too. But me -- I don't really believe. In anything."

Marina got her wide sharp grin which was somehow comforting. Marina being sympathetic was so out of character it seemed like a trick. "Sure you do, babycakes," she said lightly. "You believe we done did you wrong. All of us. You saw magic was real, you wanted it more than anything else, and what you wanted never got handed to you -- not once. Every time you think you've found the door through the clock, it gets slammed in your face. It always gets taken away. You might think, or think you think, we all have to accept things as they really are -- grow up and put away childish things, like magic, Brakebills, Fillory, justice, injustice. But you can't. And you never will. That's your faith, Julia. That you believe you deserve better. That we all do. That we should get what we want, what we need to have happen."

Julia stared at her. "That sounds like a curse," she couldn't help saying.

Marina shook her head. "Pain, loss, grief -- that's the price we pay, kiddo. That's where it comes from. You think you have nothing, it's all been taken away....but that means you have nothing to lose. _That_ gives you power. It's strength, but you can't see it, you think there's nothing there. That's why you reach out, grab with both hands -- why you do things you shouldn't be able to do."

"Now you sound like Martin."

Marina's smile grew even sharper, like a shark's teeth showing. "'Martin' knows magic. He's an evil fucker, but he knows." She studied Julia's face for a moment. "You should have just killed him -- you know that. Or let the Scooby Gang kill him, when they were fired up, ready to go. Let me push him in front of a bus. You're not even playing with fire, _devotchka._ You're juggling nuclear cores."

"I need him," Julia whispered. "To get to, to....to kill Reynard. I can't do it without him. -- It's not just revenge," she said quickly. "I mean. Yes. It is. I know it is. But you know what he's done, how he's going after all of us -- the ones who're outside -- "

"He tortures and rapes us, murders us and eats our hearts," Marina interrupted. "I know. Believe me, I've seen it." She shuddered. "Now that he's -- out here, we've got to stop him. _Brakebills_ isn't going to help us. But Reynard being out here, in the first place...." She hesitated; it was the first time Julia had ever seen her uncertain about something she wanted to say. "Do you remember the grumpy old witch -- the tall one -- in the first Fillory book, before they even go anywhere or see anyone else? They want her to do a spell, and she says....'The thing about knowin' magic is, not when to do it, but when not to do it'?"

Julia smiled: Maria's intonation was perfect, exactly the way she'd heard it in her own head all these years, ever since she and Quentin had read the books out loud together. "I remember." Of course Marina was a Fillory girl, too; she'd been bewitched, like they all had.

"You wanted power -- God, I know -- we all do. But what the hell were you all even going to do with it? With _that?"_

"We -- he wanted...." But she no longer knew what had been real, what they'd been fed, what they had parroted back to the trickster. "You know," she said, low and angry. "I told you -- you _saw._ To -- go back -- back to before, before -- Menolly got cancer, and Richard, he was a drug addict, and his son di -- and I, the -- "

Marina nodded. "I know. Okay. I do. But do _you_ know that's bullshit? Trying to undo what's already happened? Because that's what makes you a sitting duck, first for Fantastic Mr Fox, and now for the Mothman. When you dropped the cup" -- she made the crash sound again in the still heavy air of the studio, for emphasis -- "it stays broken. You can put it back together, you can fix it, you can make it almost so nobody can tell -- but you can't _unbreak_ it. You can't make it so it was never broken."

"I know." Julia felt Marina's eyes on her face, searching deep. "I _know,"_ she repeated, annoyed. "Trust me, I know now."

Marina let it go, tilting her head one way, then the other while looking into Julia's eyes, intent. "What else?" -- not a question, but a command. "Everyone back there was shit-scared, even the Foggy Foggy Dean, and not of me, sad to say. What _else_ did you do? If you won't tell me, I can't fix it."

Julia was never sure afterwards how much she was able to actually say, and what Marina might have simply pulled from her mind -- not even needing a spell, she had been that open, felt that guilty. "Q told me -- he came to warn me -- they want to kill Martin, the Beast. They've got some kind of special battle magic, he said for me not to be within twenty feet of him -- it'll kill everything." Marina rested her chin on one hand, knuckles hiding her mouth, the first two fingers of her other hand tapping fast but silently against her knee, like a keyboard trill exercise. "He said -- they have to kill the Beast, they always try, he always kills them all. Over and over. But they can't anymore -- this is the last time -- the last chance, and what's different is me, I was at Brakebills, the whole time," she whispered. "Like I was supposed to be. Only not _this_ time. Jane thought, if -- if I was on my own, if it _tested_ me, I'd be stronger -- this whole time, I was right, _I was there._ And, and -- "

"And," Marina said gently, her fingertips still drumming, faster and faster, so now they were a blur.

"And I said, I said it was okay, because I had something bigger, better. Something _real._ Not fairytales -- not in some _book_ \-- but the goddess, she'd come to us, healed us all, heard every petition, lifted every burden. _Everything._ It was a _new_ kind of magic...."

"Something that couldn't be given, or taught, or learned in any school," Marina said along with her. "Something that had to be found, by a seeker on a quest. Yeah, I remember putting that in your head."

"We had to find a god," Julia said, babbling now, not making any sense even to herself. "We had to power up, none of them could touch the knife. So we went to their temple -- Ember's and Umber's temple -- but Umber was dead, and Ember said, he said -- I stopped loving Fillory, I'd stopped, and Q hadn't, and that there was a, a shroud, over my mind" -- Marina let out a long hiss, exactly like a cat's -- "and he took it, away. And I remembered. Everything. I actually believed....I believed she chose me, that it was different, better, that I had -- he took it away. He ripped it away. I went crazy, Marina, it felt like I was crazy, again, like when they rejected me, before I knew you, I was -- the Beast isn't just going to kill them all, or magic in Fillory. Magic here, too. Everywhere. And I -- he was going to kill them all -- I took the knife, it didn't hurt -- I told him, I wanted to make a deal."

Marina's face was completely expressionless, but Julia kept on going, compelled now, she wasn't sure if it was by Marina or the need to finally tell the truth about everything, purge herself, even if only with words.

"I couldn't see them all die -- not again. I had to try to save Quentin, and everybody. And he'd killed Ember, he knew how to deal with gods, how to fuck up their shit. I made it so now he can't hurt them, they're okay. At least for now. I just, I can't....I can't rest, Marina. I can't sleep. I mean, I do but every time I have nightmares. About -- I won't be all right until I get peace of mind, with what happened to me. What Reynard did to me, to all of us. It wasn't just that he hurt us, or even that he _killed_ us! But the way he tricked us, _used_ us -- I can't do anything else. If I die trying that's okay. Because I can't live with this, Marina, I can't."

The last of it, coming out, was like dry heaves after everything else had come up, even bile and saliva, only wretched muscle spasms, choking on air. Marina's hand was on Julia's arm, over the Brakebills scar, her other hand cupped tight over her own knee, no longer moving. Julia panted through her teeth, her jaw clamped tight, muscles rigid. "Oh, Jules," Marina said, her voice so soft and sad at first Julia thought someone else was in the room with them, that she'd really lost it and Marina had had to call 911, or her sister had walked in on them somehow. "Jules. _Julia._ Ease up, c'mon." Marina gently rubbed her arm and Julia unwillingly felt herself relax; her mouth opened and she felt a long sigh issue out, emptying her lungs down to the bottom. "I'll help you. Okay? I will."

She looked down at the big newsprint sketchpad of Julia's sigils on the coffee table next to them. "I can help you. This, for example....it's about twice as complicated as it needs to be. Slows you down. But that gives you more power, blunt force. I can show you how to streamline it some. Okay? You believe me?"

"Can you do it now? Show me now?" Julia croaked, her voice feeling as if she hadn't used it in years and sounding worse. Marina smiled, but not nastily.

"Jesus, not now, no. You need to sleep" -- Julia was already shaking her head -- "okay, fine, _I_ need to sleep. To do magic, to help you, we need -- I need -- to rest. Okay? That okay?"

"Sure," Julia said, drawing her arm back and covering up the scar again, unconsciously, as if to protect it. "You can stay here. Of course."

"Is he....does the...."

"Martin -- goes out most nights. I don't know where. I caught him watching me sleep once and kicked him out." Marina made a face. "I know, total _Twilight_ creepiness."

"He didn't want a deal," Marina said, serious. "He wants you. You know that, don't you? He wants you to go all -- Dark Phoenix time."

"I forgot you were such a secret nerd."

"Like calls to like, remember? Law of similarity. So, so are you." Marina stood up. "This place have a bathroom en suite, or do I have to go down the hall?"

"No -- it's right through here." Julia got up too, to guide her.

Marina stopped in front of a side table, which had held the little shrine Julia had made to Nuestra Senora, all those months ago -- she'd thrown an old ragged towel over what was left of it, after she'd returned from Fillory, unable to either face it or take it apart. Marina plucked off the cloth and ran her long slim fingers through the shells, the cards, the candle stubs, the milky marbles, everything looking silly and childish under her hands.

 _"Stella maris,"_ Marina said softly, _"mater dolorosa,_ queen of heaven....is that what you wanted, Julia? Crawl back up inside, stay snug and safe forever? Doesn't sound like you."

Julia stared at her. "I should have _been there_ \-- they should've let me in -- "

"Shoulda coulda woulda," Marina said, voice still quiet, still sifting among the flowers so sere they crackled, the cheap tin medallions, the silver coins.

 _"You_ should understand, of all people. They kicked you out too -- "

"That they did," Marina said, suspiciously placid.

"And then you asked them to help you -- "

"That I did, yes."

"And they said no. _Again._ They wouldn't help us. They never did."

"Yeah, poor us, hunh?" Marina said, turning away from the shrine so casually Julia looked closely at her hands, but they were empty, or seemed to be. "Poor little witch girls."

When Marina emerged from the bathroom in a strongly perfumed giant dragon's-breath puff of steam (Julia was pretty sure the pipes in the building had never delivered that much hot water even when they were _new),_ wrapped in one of James's old terrycloth bathrobes, her face scrubbed and hair wrapped in a towel, she looked ten years younger and even more like the china doll's head with the insanely blue eyes. Julia wondered suddenly, for the first time, if she could do a finding spell for it -- but no, it probably wouldn't have survived, not after this long. Marina looked at Julia's oversized T-shirt (another relic of James), worn nearly translucent, flowing yoga pants, and bare feet with familiar disdain.

"Are you fucking kidding me?"

Julia shrugged. Marina opened the tiny built-in closet in the bathroom where the towels were, felt around in it for a few seconds, and pulled out a pair of small tailored black silky pajamas Julia hadn't even known were in the apartment -- probably they hadn't been. She rolled her eyes.

"You can't fool me. I bet you have an old Brakebills sweatshirt. Maybe a couple of them."

Marina grinned. "Those are fake, you know. We sell 'em on hedgebay." She wandered into the bedroom, unwinding the towel and carefully patting her hair dry as her eyes, never still, scanned the room and Julia saw everything in it as if it were spotlit: bras on the floor, sheets washed two weeks ago slipping off the mattress, curling bar photobooth strips of her and Quentin stuck to the mirror, her and James's graduation tassels on top of a jewelry box, old Goddess Tarot cards (Isis, Sarasvati, Oya) propped up against half-empty votive candles. At least there weren't pizza boxes and Starbucks cups everywhere. Marina had now been in Julia's studio several times, but Julia had never seen where Marina lived -- not a lot of people had. It was part of her Queen Bitch mystique, but also just how hedge witches lived -- there were temporary covens, safehouses, even informal communes, but each of them had started out alone and searching and to some extent, they always remained so. _Sitting ducks,_ Julia remembered Marina saying.

Now Marina was checking the wards on the doors and windows, nodding in approval at the ones capping even the old-fashioned radiator pipes and painted-over cracks in the wooden window frames. "Pretty good -- the corners could be more reinforced, but at least he wouldn't be able to walk right in, let his hair hang down. Might take him a whole five minutes." She eyed the bed with disdain, then did a series of smoothing motions with her hands overlapped and thumbs curving up, and the bed was covered with what must have been high thread-count sheets, plumped-up pillows and a down comforter with one corner folded invitingly back. The room looked more like an Anthropologie catalogue page than ever. "I can take the couch," Julia said heroically, but Marina laughed at her.

"Like hell. We need to _rest._ Come on, head to toe, we'll fit fine." She pointed at the bed. "When I come back, you better be under the covers and saying your prayers." She went back into the bathroom, leaving the door ajar, and Julia heard more presumably piping-hot water running over clicks, muffled thumps and other sounds which suggested a nightly high-maintenance beauty ritual. Julia sighed and got into bed, where she found the sheets as silkily cool and the pillows as soft and supporting as they seemed. Even the finely woven wool blanket tucked over the sheets was precisely the right weight, reassuring without being heavy or itchy. "If anything starts singing, you're gonna get zapped," she muttered, but flicked on the white Christmas lights draped along the headboard and trailing down to the floor, which served as a guide back to the present when she woke up from the nightmares.

She was so tired she started in surprise when Marina bounced onto the bed beside her, perfectly manicured toes propped on the pillows next to Julia's head. The nail polish was unchipped, a shimmering deep purple, and Julia wondered if the surface was really that flawless or if it was a low-energy illusion -- but it was useless to ask that about Marina, the surface was what you got. As if the thought had summoned her, Marina's face popped up at the end of the bed -- she was raised up on her elbows but the billowing comforter covered her so thoroughly all Julia saw was the flawless skin, dark hair fading into the darkness behind her, and, even in the dark, those sapphire eyes, searching.

"Why do you want to stay here? Aren't you afraid he'll come back?"

Julia thought the question over, but it made no sense. "But I want him to come back," she said. "I mean, that's the....point?"

"I can't deal with this," Marina said abruptly, and her head fell back as she lifted one hand and made a snuffing gesture -- her hand quickly making a fist as she turned her palm down -- and Julia's Christmas tree nightlights went out. The contrasting darkness might have been a prepared bath, it was so total and somehow warm, and Julia was pulled down into it, drifting far below the surface in seconds.

The nightmare started, as it always did, with the horrible sweet reek of fresh blood. Julia had read in some psychology textbook during undergrad how human beings couldn't really remember smells, which was such total bullshit, because every night since she'd remembered she'd smelled the same thing, hot spurting life becoming death, something you were never supposed to know, like seeing your own secret internal organs spread out in front of you. There they were, her friends, so brave and so fucked: Menolly stepping in front of Richard, Silver holding Bender tight, Kady desperately trying to summon the worst battle magic she knew even if it might blow them all up. And there they were, all of them ripped up like meat, just butchered carcasses, the blood horribly warm, clinging to her like paint as she scrabbled along the slick wood, breaking nails trying for a handhold as he dragged her backwards. She couldn't see Kady anymore and had to hope she'd escaped, hope for something other than the pain blotting everything else out. It wasn't only his hand pulling hard on her hair, his other hand twisting her arm up behind her back, his dick battering deep inside her, but something else, something burning her from the inside out, eviscerating her as much as her friends had been only with fire instead of claws and teeth, a flame meant to burn up every bit of her soul and leave only the memory of pain, and ashes. She heard his voice, booming in her ear -- _Julia, Julia_ \-- and tried to twist her head away, but couldn't move at all. "Julia!" the voice said, louder, sounding bizarrely worried, and maybe even impatient. "Julia!"

Julia gasped, opened her eyes and sat bolt upright all in the same second, and saw Marina, also sitting up, at the far end of the bed, and realized it had been Marina calling her name, pulling her back. Every muscle in her body felt rigid, her heart was pounding, and she was drenched in sweat. _It was a dream. It's not real, not this time. You're awake._ She burst into tears, to her complete mortification. Marina sighed, her posture going slack, and squeezed Julia's ankle. "Oh, Jesus. I'm no fucking good at this. You want tea? Water? Booze? Something?" Julia tried to draw breath to speak, but couldn't stop sobbing and something caught in her throat. "Hey, no, if you do that you'll choke. Come on."

The streetlights shone in through the window, too diffuse to show anything but dark shapes against a darker background. Julia sensed rather than saw Marina's hand do something halfway between a finger-snap and striking a match, while circling in the air, and a blue werelight bloomed, the same crazy laser-light-show colour as her eyes. It gently bobbed up to the ceiling, casting kind shadows like a candle, and hovered close to the dark overhead light fixture as if it were seeking connection. It crackled slightly as it grew brighter by slow degrees, like a fancy wake-up light on a timer.

"It was him," Julia forced out, finally able to talk, the sharp knifelike inhalations chopping up her words, making her body shake as if she were having a seizure. "It was him. It was him, Marina, it was him. All along."

"I know. I know, kiddo." Marina scooted along the bed until she was sitting next to Julia and put one hand on either side of Julia's face. Julia flinched, but Marina kept her hands steady, and then wiped beneath her eyes with one thumb, then the other. Her hands were cool, quieting, like a mother's touch in the midst of delirium. She put both index fingers gently on Julia's temples. "Damn, he just ripped all my work right out, didn't he? All those nice stitches...." Her third and fourth fingers touched Julia's skin now too, rubbing in small circles. "What a guy. Gods are such dicks." Julia closed her eyes, her diaphragm still spasming painfully now and then, like hiccups of grief. She realized in a detached way that the immaculate-looking covers still smelled the same as her unwashed sheets and pilled blanket.

"Hey. Hey. I can help you -- I can't do another patch, and like I told you before, I don't know how to just take the bad memories out without hurting you, the way Brakebills does. But I can help you sleep, without the nightmares. Can we try that?"

"It's like I'm there. It's not like a dream. It's like I'm back there," Julia said, still shuddering.

"I can help you, I swear. But you have to trust me."

"I do?"

"Well, yeah," Marina said, slightly impatient again, and Julia almost -- not smiled, but she could feel the muscles in her face move, no longer frozen in fear and pain.

"I let you in, didn't I?"

"Only because you knew you'd be pretty much dead without me," Marina sassed, and this time Julia did smile, for the first time in what felt like months.

"Right back atcha, hedge bitch."

"Now _there's_ my girl."

Marina leaned over and plucked a small oblong mirror -- which Julia was reasonably sure hadn't been there until that moment -- off the end table, flipping it around and over several times in her hands. "Mirror magic, you know the drill, very old....and _don't_ get in between two of them." Julia did know; she'd picked up some intermediate reflection spells, but she didn't remember any about nightmares or sedatives. Mirrors were either about travel, or illusion. Marina set the watery-looking rectangle between them on the puffy comforter and made a few passes over it, her hands pressed together and then peeling apart in a wavelike motion. The surface of the mirror began to ripple, and Marina traced a line right above its center with her index fingers lined up next to each other, then drew them apart. The mirror parted too, not breaking or snapping, but dividing itself like a ball of mercury in a science lab.

"There," Marina breathed, and handed one of the halves to Julia, the silver still quivering a little. It was about the size of a pack of cards. "Okay, turn around, we gotta line 'em up. Come on, scooch...."

It took a few minutes for Marina to be satisfied with the proper position of the mirrors, standing them up against the hills of comforter and pillows -- Julia had forgotten how fussy she was about setup -- until finally she saw one of her blue eyes, a disembodied fragment, and then Marina winked. "Okay, good enough for government work. You don't have to keep looking in it the whole time, but just check to make sure it's still angled right -- if it isn't, we have to fix it fast."

She picked Julia's long hair up off her shoulders -- Julia flinched -- and deftly gathered it all together, already finger-combing out some easy tangles, then separated it into five or six strands and started swiftly winding them around each other, braiding Julia's hair into what felt like a dense and complicated pattern. Julia's hair was thick already, and as Marina wrapped and wove and occasionally swore at a particularly bad snarl, she felt the magic gathering in it, weighing it down even further. She restlessly moved her hands in her lap, then sat very straight and still so she wouldn't disturb anything. Marina snorted. Julia tried to figure out what the hell Marina was making -- it didn't feel like French braids, but the knotted hair wasn't hanging down loose, either. How the hell was she doing that without pins? "How'd you get so good at this?" she asked.

"Just relax," Marina said. "Alllmost done," and memories came back unwanted, of Julia's big sister doing her hair before they went off to private school in the morning, their mother already on the phone, patiently pulling the big wet brush through over and over again, never yanking or snagging. She blew out a big impatient breath.

"Jesus, I forgot how you always want to _rush,"_ Marina snapped, but her tone was fond. "Okay, don't move, or this will hurt." It felt like she tightly twisted the braids together, and then reached up to wind them around Julia's head -- it was a coronet, maybe a little mocking. Julia smiled. "Okay, _really_ don't move, just for one sec, or it'll all come apart." She tucked in an end and then very gently tied a final loose knot right in Julia's hair, not using any kind of tie or band. Knot magic -- the oldest and simplest kind in the world, so easy kids often did it without even knowing it, as basic as reciting the alphabet or, well, tying your shoes. Julia sat still, not even breathing, and the weaving held.

 _"Per_ -fect." Marina started pulling it all apart, raking her fingers through Julia's hair, but all the snarls must have been combed out because it was painless, and Julia had forgotten how relaxing it was to have someone brush through your hair like that, tugging a little on the roots for stimulation. Either Marina had cast smoothing spells along with whatever the mirror magic was or she'd picked up witchy glamour beauty tips, because Julia could feel her hair falling down princess-perfect. "Now! You do me."

She'd already turned around by the time Julia started to move, resituated the mirrors and pulled back her own hair; Marina hated wasting any effort, or even seconds of time during a casting. Julia hesitantly spread Marina's hair out on her back. It felt so different: thick, too, but smooth and silky, rippling like water. "It doesn't have to be fancy," Marina coached. "Just do what I did -- braid it up, make sure it stays a minute, then undo it again. Just focus, it's fine."

Julia worked with fingers that felt stiff and cold, ungraceful, and decided on a simple single three-layer braid; surely, even she should be able to do that right now. Marina's hair was fine as well as thick, and slippery. She gathered in errant strands as best she could, but the braid was coming out not off-center but lopsided somehow. She faltered a couple of times and probably yanked, but Marina never flinched or made a sound. Julia stopped at the end of the braid, halfway down Marina's back, and held the feather-duster end loosely in her hands, wondering how the hell she was going to make a knot that didn't slip.

"Just don't stop, keep it going. You wouldn't leave a girl hanging, would you?" Marina's one flame-blue eye winked at her again in the mirror.

Impulsively, Julia coiled the long braid -- already slithering free -- into a tight spiral, carefully winding around and around, and pressed it flat against the nape of Marina's neck, right at the join between skull and spine. Fingers unsteady, she tucked the end of the braid in the very center of the spiral and lifted her hands carefully, certain it would all unreel like a tape measure snapping back, but the knot held.

Marina's breath hissed in. "Oh, you're good, I almost forgot how you don't _know,_ but you know how to do these things -- and they're so right -- "

Shaken, Julia twitched the end of the braid and Marina's hair seemed to unwind itself almost instantly. She tried combing it out sleek and smooth, the way Marina had for her, but the separate hanks slipped free and joined back together nearly by themselves. Marina shook her head a little, so all her hair flowed free down her back, and then wriggled around to face Julia again. _"Now."_

She took one mirror, balancing it flat on her palm, and motioned for Julia to pick up the other one, then put her free hand over both their hands, covering the reflection. She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath, and Julia felt a little cold shock, like when you went outside and breathed in deep on the first day of snow. Marina made several complex passes over their hands, and then Julia saw a little ball of wobbling silver cupped in Marina's palm. It looked like a ball of mercury, but had bright lights swimming across its surface, and odd milky highlights, maybe reflected moonlight from the moon that had already gone down. Julia stared at it. Marina smiled at her, cocking her eyebrows, and then raised her hand and popped it in her mouth like it was a gumball. From what Julia could see she didn't bite down, just held it on her tongue.

Marina put her hands on Julia's shoulders -- they were practically in each others' laps anyway -- and brought her face very close to Julia's, so close Julia could smell some faint perfume that had remained after even the long shower, something very faint and flowery maybe touched with honey, and not like Marina at all. Marina kissed her, eyes open, her tongue pressing gently against Julia's lips, and Julia felt the cold metal and opened her mouth. The mirror-magic ball was not only cold but powerfully minty, like real mint, sharp and not sweet, like how you imagined that first snow might really taste like instead of plain water. Marina drew back and, keeping one hand on Julia's shoulder, cupped the other right under her chin. "Spit," she commanded, like a dental assistant. Shocked, Julia opened her mouth and the ball dropped back into Marina's palm, its light dimmed -- it looked even tarnished in spots, black and rough. She felt an obscure shame.

As Julia watched, the ball lost its shape and melted into a little black puddle in Marina's hand, a perfect tiny pool holding a miniature faithful reflection of all of it -- Marina, Julia, their magic, Julia's bed, the blood and pain and horror that had happened in the apartment, endless betrayal over and over, everything. Marina wriggled her fingers a little and the black dissolved, not running off like water but drifting up as if it were liquid ashes, borne away as Marina blew over her hand like blowing out a candle.

"Sleep," Marina told her, and it was a good thing Julia had turned to face her in the bed because she fell back onto the mattress, on her pillow (her head perfectly centered in the middle, pure Marina technique), feeling her regally dressed hair fan out around her like she was falling into water. She heard Marina's voice gently chanting, with no emphasis or sarcasm:

_Holy mother, you who untie the knots, Maria Knotenlöserin, who sees us bound in disbelief, loosen our bonds, free us through our faith, libera nos, domina, salve nos, regina, release us from our pain and suffering, Notre Dame Sous Terre._

And underneath Marina's words, like a divine descant, there was another voice rising up, somehow in harmony with or resonating with itself, the voice you'd always known and could never have really forgotten, the first voice you ever knew, telling you the best and oldest lie of all: _Enough. Enough, you have suffered enough. You deserve peace. My daughter, you are safe now, it is over. You are home._


	2. Playlist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I listened to a LOT of music while writing this. I love playlists and hearing what other people listen to while they're writing, so here you go. It's not really sequenced, because I'm terrible at that and I also typically just put all these on shuffle.
> 
> The links are to YouTube, because that's free and doesn't require signup and I think is reasonably accessible, and 8tracks has gone off the rails. Let me know in comments if a link is dead.

[Art of Time Ensemble feat. Sarah Slean - I'll Never Tear You Apart](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4eZ0gIz66c)

_Slashed 'cross the back / your spine almost snapped / I put three bullets in his face / and I hung it from a tree / for the other ones to see / what happens if / you mess with me_

 

[Regina Spektor - Old Jacket (Stariy Pidjak)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmzfaapaPMA)

_He trims and sews without a word / With such meticulous precision / As if upon a sacred mission / To have my happiness restored_

 

[Cat Power - Metal Heart (live)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMZZp1L-MH4) (Julia)

_Losing a star without a sky / Losing the reasons why / You're losing the calling that you've been faking_

 

[Ane Brun - Puzzle](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILrYfkgtObo) (this is THE Julia song) (also, have [this gorgeous live acoustic version)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_0r0M3CDz0)

_Her remains were spread out like the pieces of a puzzle / It took her 365 days putting them together / The pieces were quite difficult to distinguish from each other / They were tiny and the clear blue sky / Went on forever / (I wouldn't do that to ya)_

 

[Daughter - Get Lucky](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5Cp55MvX54)

_We've come too far / To give up who we are / So let's raise the bar / And our cups to the stars_

 

[Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton - Dr. Blind](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pq-jEHZ-EFc)

_My baby's got the lonesome lows / Don't quite go away overnight_

 

[Kristin Hersh - When The Levee Breaks](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxUJRTbN_qA)

_Crying won't help you, praying won't do you no good_

 

[Metric - Empty](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZDOa7_EV6Q)

_When there's no way out, the only way out is to give in_

 

[Tori Amos - Spark](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVMwDd8V_kY)

_If the divine master's plan is perfection / Maybe next I'll give Judas a try_

 

[Tori Amos - Strange Little Girl](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghGgycFEg64)

_Strange little girl, where are you going?_

 

[Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Sacrilege](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmRI3Ew4BvA) (warning, disturbing video)

_And I plead and I pray / It’s sacrilege, sacrilege, sacrilege, you say_

 

[Garbage - Metal Heart](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4l6tkllr98) (Marina)

_I wish I wasn't flesh and blood / I would not be scared / Of bullets built with me in mind / Then I could be saved_

 

[PJ Harvey - Man-Size](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuJE40OBt48)

_My babe looking cool and neat / I'm pretty sure good enough to eat_

(sorry, sorry) (here, have [Rid of Me live](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzwG3r9_L9o) to make up for that)

 

[Anais Mitchell & Ani Difranco - Our Lady Of The Underground](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7YKDgkVWvo)

_Brother, what’s my name? My name is -- / Our Lady of the Underground!_

 

[Sinead O'Connor - All Babies](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkCXQBY4q7w)

_God gives them the stars to use as ladders / She hears their calls / She is mother and father_

 

[Cocteau Twins - Aikea-Guinea](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEpeZm_f1Zk)

 

[Lush - Sweetness and Light](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7cqkpy4QrQ)

_You are the sweetness in my eyes / You are an apple in disguise_

 

[case/lang/veirs - Atomic Number (opbmusic)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaB1tT7_YPU)

_I'm not the freckled maid / I'm not the fair-haired girl / I'm not a pail of milk for you to spoil_

 

[Dessa - Dixon's Girl (Castor, The Twin version)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2k9qdbNPmr8) (this is my song for the OTP)

_I haven't met too many women in this business that I really like like-like-like / But you could hold a little liquor / You could hold a conversation / You could hold your own mic_

 

[Nina Simone - Sinnerman](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qVLN-up9Pk)

_But the rock cried out, I can't hide you / The rock cried out, I can't hide you / The rock cried out, I ain't gonna hide you_

 

[The Kills - Last Day Of Magic (Jonathan Ross 2008)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GagEYSXrQXg)

_Last day of magic, where are you?_

 

[Whitehorse - Devil's Got a Gun (full band live)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvUuBwzegpM)

_I'm never going home / I'll be the only one / With daylight on my tail / And heaven on the run_

 

[Marianne Faithfull - Witches' Song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kq3fBKGDIOw)

_Danger is great joy, dark is bright as fire_

(and [the Juliana Hatfield  _Craft_ cover)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8MPGgInRYI)

 

[Jasmine Thompson - Demons](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwOYTt7Y-Uc)

_I want to hide the truth, I want to shelter you_

 

[Jane Siberry & KD Lang - Calling All Angels](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRUErh47sao)

_Santa Maria, Santa Teresa, Santa Anna, Santa Susannah, Santa Cecilia, Santa Copelia, Santa Domenica, Mary Angelica....and all the rest_

 

[Jessye Norman - Ave Maria (Schubert) (live)](Jessye%20Norman%20-%20Ave%20Maria%20\(Schubert\))

_Wir schlafen sicher bis zum Morgen / Ob Menschen noch so grausam sind / O Jungfrau, sieh der Jungfrau Sorgen / O Mutter, hör ein bittend Kind_

**Author's Note:**

> I've read the Magicians trilogy several times, but started watching the SyFy adaptation on a whim and really didn't expect to fall in love with it. I instantly shipped Marina/Julia, and I wrote this before seeing "Divine Eliminations," which torpedoes it. SIGH. I really was not expecting to get mugged by this fic, which basically popped up during a time of personal trauma and while I'm still struggling to finish something else. Julia was my favourite in the books, and I was fascinated by her dynamic with Marina, which is now apparently over in canon, so I might write fix-it fic for that. Maybe.
> 
> The title is from the Art of Time Ensemble's cover of Martin Tielli's "I'll Never Tear You Apart," featuring Sarah Slean (see playlist), which is [beautiful on its own,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAEPTKaUPQc) but I wanted all-female artists.  
>    
> The bit of Russian Martin sings is from "Old Jacket (Stariy Pidjak)," covered by Regina Spektor (again, see playlist), [famously by Bulat Okudzhava.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXOeAGY3TAg)
> 
> "Now it's up to you  
> To remedy the situation  
> The magic art of alteration  
> Should make my life as good as new"
> 
> Apologies if the translation and transliteration are both bad, I got them off the internet because I don't speak Russian.
> 
> Yes, that is Granny Weatherwax making an uncredited appearance in the Fillory books, because frankly this is fanfic and I felt like it, and, and it was thematic! and stuff.
> 
> Because Kacey Rohl is an amazing actress who deserves better than to be HORRIBLY MURDERED in every part, there's a little Hannibal reference, just for fun.
> 
> The words Julia hears at the end under Marina's are from when the goddess speaks to her in _The Magician King._


End file.
